Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know?

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Quote for the Week

I was all set to go with another Quote for the Week, when the new issue of Sight & Sound(December 08) dropped on my doorstep. Opening it up, I was confronted with this gem from none other than Ingmar Bergman himself, and was so blown away that I couldn't help but share it:

I cannot help thinking that the medium at my disposal is so fine and complicated that it should be able to illuminate the human soul more strongly, to reveal more ruthlessly, cover new realms of reality of which we are still ignorant...we who are engaged with filmmaking take advantage of only a fraction of an immense capacity. We use the little finger of a giant's hand and that giant is so far from harmless.

The quote is sourced in S&S as coming from Bergman's Self-analysis of a film-maker, included in the new book The Ingmar Bergman Archives from Taschen. I'm very excited about this book, having read The Stanley Kubrick Archives from cover to beautiful cover. If the Bergman book is even half as good as the Kubrick one, then I would say that it’s an essential purchase for any Bergman fan. And as the quote above suggests, Bergman is one of the most sublime of all filmmakers, so you should all be fans...